This invention relates generally to propellers and propeller related vehicles and more particular to vehicles, such as air, land and water vehicles, that use or incorporate propellers to create lift or as a means for propulsion, and for most aspects the present invention relate to air based vehicles designed for the toy or hobby industry.
While the present invention is related in part to vehicles developed in the toy and hobby industry. There are many types of vehicles that use propellers as a source of lift or as a means for propulsion. The more common types of these vehicles are air/space based vehicles such as airplanes, helicopters, or unconventional aircraft. In general such aircraft require complex programming and mechanics to control the flight path and are especially difficult to control. In most instances, controlling these aircraft to fly in a stable horizontal position takes countless hours of practice.
Examples of these prior art aircraft may be found in the following U.S. patents; U.S. Pat. No. 5,609,312 is directed to a model helicopter that describes an improved fuselage with a structure that supports radio-control components, and drive train components in an attempt to provide a simple structure; U.S. Pat. No. 5,836,545 is directed to a rotary wing model aircraft that includes a power distribution system that efficiently distributes engine power to the rotary wings and tail rotor system; U.S. Pat. No. 5,879,131 is directed to a main propeller system for model helicopters that are capable of surviving repeated crashes; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,604,075 is directed to a toy helicopter that includes a removable control unit, which a user may plug into the toy helicopter.
These toys use at least one propeller rotating in a substantially horizontal plane to create and sustain lift. One problem that arises is when the propellers are rotating in the horizontal plane, variations such as wind or power fluctuations may cause the propeller blades to pitch, which further causes the aircraft to tip, turn, oscillate or bank. This effect may be compensated for and corrected with complicated programming and mechanics. However, as mentioned above these have a tendency to make the aircraft too expensive or too difficult to control, especially for children. The ability to even maintain horizontal stability in these aircrafts is extremely difficult.
As such a need exists to improve these aircrafts that utilize propellers to create and sustain lift to overcome the problems identified above. Such a need should be inexpensive and easy to implement. The outcome should further provide for aircrafts that are easy to control or manipulate without the need for complex linkages, servos, gyros or other electromechanical devices.
There is also a continuing need to create vehicles that use alternate means for powering or driving the propellers. One such alternative means would be a pneumatic engine that runs off of pressurized fluid. In addition thereto, there is also an need to make the toy and hobby aircraft safer. Oftentimes a child or user is injured when the user comes in contact with a rotating propeller, as such there exists a further need to make the propellers safer.
A pneumatically driven propelled vehicle in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention is described as a helicopter having an airframe that houses a pneumatic motor mechanism, which is used to power a main propeller. A user can attach an external pump to an intake manifold defined on the pneumatic motor mechanism in order to pump and pressurize air inside of a reservoir. A pneumatic motor utilizing the pressurized air is used to rotate a main drive shaft. A horizontal stabilizing means is attached between the main propeller and a main drive shaft. The horizontal stabilizing means permits the main propeller to rotate and freely pivot about the main drive shaft independently from the airframe. As such when the main propeller is rotating and the main propeller begins to pitch, a centrifugal force created by the rotation of the main propeller, tends to pivot the main propeller about the horizontal stabilizing means in a manner that offsets the pitch such that the helicopter remains in a substantially horizontal position.
Numerous advantages and features of the invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description of the invention and the embodiments thereof, and from the accompanying drawings.